vegas trip June 29, 2009

My family decided we should all go to Vegas this past weekend and so we did. My grandparents haven’t been there in years and it was time we dragged them out of the house. Unsurprisingly, having my grandpa in my car for five hours wasn’t all that fun. I know i’ve already complain about him in previous blog entries, but here’s some more! He’s hot-headed, loud, controlling, stubborn, and impatient; in other words, he’s old. I can’t blame him for being the way he is because senility obviously comes with age, but at that very moment he’s flinging all types of shenanigans at me, it’s kind of hard not to resent him. People who know me well know I don’t like driving to or around places I’m not familiar with. I don’t know why, I just don’t like the feeling. So, driving in Vegas wasn’t exactly my cup of tea either, and with my grandpa in the back telling me where to go or how to drive seemed to make the situation much worse. Another complaint is that my family has the tendency to rush. “We have to hurry! They’re waiting!” or “It’s going to be a long wait at the buffet! Hurry up!” I thought this was called a vacation? Since when does a vacation have a “hurry your ass up” button?

Now that I’m done complaining…The good parts of this entire weekends was the buffet at Orleans, Riley’s neverending cyclone of energy, and shopping. We also tried the buffet at Wynn for the first time and I honestly didn’t enjoy the food as much as I enjoyed Orleans’. I guess my family just doesn’t have the taste for the high end, especially when it comes to fancy food.

Overall, this trip was more little bit more stressful than fun (obviously). I was profusely sweating on the drive home from Vegas because again, driving at night with strong winds make me nervous. It also made me nervous that I was responsible for getting my six family members home safely. My dad offered to drive the next half home after our stop at Barstow, so I gladly forfeited the van keys.

Franco has already promised that he’ll to take me to Vegas in September (when hotel rates are cheaper) for two nights. I definitely can’t wait for that 🙂

still unfinished June 18, 2009

Hola compadres. Remember when I blogged about almost getting my oven installed? Didn’t happen. My kitchen is still crap. I want to bake and I can’t. Surprisingly, I’m sick and tired of eating out and I don’t know how much longer this renovation is going to last. The construction workers are supposedly “waiting for our custom-made counter tops,” but I don’t believe them. I just want my house back to normal already. It doesn’t feel like home when there’s plastic covering the walls and when the floors are taped with cardboard; that doesn’t help the fact that my dog likes to poop on paper. It’s unbelievable that a 1 minute accident can cause months of remodeling and construction. Poop.

just keep waiting May 24, 2009

My dad has several jewelry shows a year and usually I take part in most of them but this time I didn’t go to the Vegas show as planned. Nobody at home can drive my sister to school and my mom to work everyday, so I get the pleasure of being the family chauffeur. No biggie. I just feel bad for not being able to help my dad out this time, especially with him being stressed out lately. Poor Daddy 😦

So, I finally bought the Nikkor 35mm/1.8G AF-S lens that my cousin instructed me to buy. According to him it’s one of the best and affordable lens I could get. I’ve been looking at sample pictures on Flickr that people have taken with their 35mm lens and I’m really pleased by the dramatic blur of the background. The only bad part about this is the wait. The lens I ordered on Amazon is “Temporarily out of stock,” and they’ll ship it to me once they get some in. The wait is agonizing. Good news is my D60 body will be shipped to me by Wednesday and I could temporarily use my dad’s $900 Nikkor lens that probably won’t even suit me. I hate being so impatient. In the meantime I’m planning on reading up on photography tips and lessons. Later today, I’ll probably make a pit stop to Barnes and Noble to pick up The Digital Photography Book that (again) my cousin told me to read. Lol. What would I do without him?

decision made April 20, 2009

My decision (more like my Dad’s decision) has officially been made. I’m going to sign a withdrawal contract for PVAS and start working at my dad’s place in L.A. For. The. Rest. Of. My. Life. I know what you’re all thinking, QUITTER! I don’t blame any of you for bashing my decision to quit less than halfway into this, but I, personally, made this decision knowing that I (most likely) won’t have any financial difficulties in the future. When I have a family of my own, I want to be able to provide everything my parents have provided me with as a child until now. I want to be mentally, physically, and most importantly financially ready for my future baby and husband. What’s up with all this money talk, right? Money doesn’t buy happiness. Money feeds greed. Quite frankly, I don’t want to have worry about having to grab fast food for dinner every night just to get by. There’s no quality to life when you sit there staring at your bills. So yes, whether you like it or not money is a very important aspect of every single human being’s life. My only concern now is if I’ll ever do a great a job as my dad does at being a business owner. Wish me luck.

BTW, did anyone catch Miss California’s atrocious answer on her “gay marriage” interview question? She gives California a bad name, shame on her. Go Perez Hilton!

not today March 22, 2009

Buying the RX was a no-go for today, mostly because they didn’t have the color combination we wanted. My parents had decided to buy me the white one after all, so I’m definitely patient enough to wait for it 😀 The only problem is that the gray interior that we wanted is harder to find with a white exterior. My cousin, Jack, was making calls for us all day and finally found one at the Crown Lexus in Ontario for the price we wanted. Unfortunately, the salesman had been playing games just to get us to go out there for the price we didn’t agree with. Needless to say, my dad walked out of that sleazy place in less than three minutes. It was a complete waste of our gas and time, you can bet that my dad was pissed off. We’ve decided to hold off until next week for more incoming inventory and so the wait begins (which I have no problem with whatsoever because I’m going to get white!).

A cups March 6, 2009

Hey everyone! Sorry for the decreased amount of my blogging, nothing exciting has been going on so I didn’t feel like wasting your reading time on something unimportant. The past few days I’ve been here in Downtown, LA with my cousin and and also at home where my grandfather has been driving me nuts. My grampa is probably the meanest person alive who doesn’t have the ability to emotionally hurt me because all he does is yell and cuss at me when something is wrong. Last night he falsely accused me of misplacing the new garage door opener he had bought when I had no idea what he was talking about.  There was nothing I could do but yell back at him, “I didn’t take it! I didn’t touch it! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” about a thousand times to drown him out. I wouldn’t doubt it if the entire street heard him shouting about his missing remote, geez. He finally found it 3 minutes later in the garage where he had left it. Oh my f-cking god. Next time, I’m going to secretly videotape him when he has another one of his episodes. Haha! That would be fun.

My parents will be coming back from their business trip on Monday and as expected, these two weeks passed by extra quick. Because of the temporary schedule change I haven’t been on my JC diet nor have I hit the gym even once. I don’t feel too bad about it because a short break is always good. At least I know I’ll get back on track next week for sure. My sister has been dying to go to the new 24 Hour Fitness in Walnut so we’ll probably have to make a stop there sometime next week. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll end up liking that gym due to the high infestation of high schoolers in skimpy workout clothes. Nothing ruins a good workout more than a desperate high school girl showing off her A cups at the gym (some of you will get it and some of you will not, heh!).

This Sunday me and my cousins are planning to take Riley to the San Diego Zoo! I haven’t been there for 2 years so I’m pretty excited about it. Franco has never been to San Diego at all so this will be his first time in that area 😀 Pretty fun. I can’t wait to take pictures of Riley at his first trip to the zoo. Hopefully, the weather stays cool throughout the entire day.

worst day ever February 16, 2009

Today was probably one of the worst days I’ve had in a long time. Come to think of it, I’ve actually never had a truly bad day. Let’s list what went wrong shall we? This will probably be a long one so brace yourselves.

1. I woke up with the inability to move because of how cold it was. Originally it only takes me 15 minutes to get ready for work but today I moved in slow motion and ended up taking almost half an hour just to put on my clothes. I tried turning the heater on so my internal organs would thaw out, but it didn’t work.

2. Ricky broke the news to me when I stepped into work that Dr. A will be coming in instead of Dr. M. By then I was already expecting the worse. Yay for 1 hour long spays!

3. At first glance, the surgery sheet stated that we only had two surgeries today. Little did me and Ricky know, there was a hidden page in the back that had three more clients scheduled for surgery. That makes a total of five surgeries. Five. Dr A and five spays only meant one thing: no lunch.

4. As I filed in the surgery patients into the kennels I started to realize something. They were all big breeds; we’re talking two German Shephards, a Husky mix, a Boxer, and a very antsy and psychotic Rottweiler. I’m not use to big dogs and honestly I’m going to tell you now that I am so glad that I don’t have one. Maybe we just had a brush of bad luck and ended up with diffcult ones that were a little hard of handling today, I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I do love dogs of all shapes and sizes so please don’t think of me differently. I’m just having a bad day :[

6. If I could tell you how many times I’ve hurt myself today, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of how I would give it to you in numbers. My hands are so badly mangled from nicks, cuts, and stabs that I’m actually starting to get “work hands.” (Gasp!) Not work hands?! As I was restraining a dog for Dr. A I took a long glance at his hands and hoped to Buddha that mine weren’t turning that way soon. My entire body aches and I have tons of potential bruises waiting to sprout.

7. Two dogs crapped in a cage. Did I mention that these were big dogs? Yeah.

8. As expected, Dr. A took an hour on each spay (it takes Dr. M about 20 minutes) and it cut through my lunch time. I had about 10 minutes to heat up and scarf down my lunch (as opposed to the usual 2 hours) so I could go back into the surgery room to watch the Doctor fumble with his sutures for another half hour.

In all honesty, that doesn’t entirely sum up my bad day but I’m pretty sure you get the idea. To add to this distaster, I have to report for jury duty in Norwalk tomorrow. I’ve never had jury duty nor do I have any idea what the hell it will consist of so it makes me a little nervous.

Whatever.

grandpa February 5, 2009

G: Why don’t you make right here?
M: Because I’m going a different way. (thinking to myself: You tell me where to go at every turn. I know where I’m going.)
G: Why are you staying so far behind the car in front of you? People are going to cut you off.
M: (Thinking to myself: Dude, it’s raining and there’s traffic. Please stop telling me how to drive. You’re distracting me and you could cause me to get into an accident.)
G: You need to fill up your gas now.
M: No, I don’t. It’s only half empty.
G: Just go to the gas station to fill the rest of it up.
M: (Thinking to myself: I want to rip my hair out.)

You probably  haven’t experienced unholy impatience and aggravation at the same time until you’ve driven my Grandpa around. Here I was, thinking it was best for him to have his driving privileges taken away for the safety of the public and, most importantly of all, safety of himself. In the beginning, the thought of me driving him to the pharmacy or shopping for groceries one or two days a week was fine. Did I say “fine?” You know what? I completely and utterly take back that comment. Everyone who knows me pretty much knows me as a patient person; I’m quiet and, most of the time, easygoing; I don’t argue back nor do I talk a lot. Believe or not, I actually love doing favors for my family because I think it’s important to keep a close and intimate relationship with them. The only person who makes me want to rip my hair out is my Grandpa! Don’t get me wrong, I love him to death. He and my grandma raised me to be the person I am today and I am eternally grateful to still have them in my life. I still just don’t understand how impatient and demanding a person can be. Although it’s only been a couple times a week when I had to take him to god knows where, I’ve probably already grown some white hairs due to high levels of stress. I also wouldn’t doubt it if my blood pressure shot up in less than an hour. Gah! I need to stop being so negative and start getting use to the fact that my Grandpa is getting older every day. Pretty soon he won’t even be able to go out, let alone walk himself. When that day comes I’m going to fully regret the decision of posting this blog, but I’m just venting. I’m only human, if I keep this inside I’ll just explode into little human bits and no one will be able to take my Grandpa to get his meds at WalMart anymore.

You know what? I just realized something. Everyone is selfish in their own twisted way, including myself. You can’t help me, my complaining won’t help me, no one can do anything about it but myself. I just need to build a very short and narrow bridge and get over it…fast.

word of the day December 25, 2008

ap-pre-ci-ate [uh–pree-shee-eyt]
1. to be grateful or thankful for:

Don’t you just hate it when someone put forth effort into buying a gift and they just end up being somewhat unappreciative? Who cares if it’s too cheap looking, if it’s not wrapped, or if even if if you don’t have any type of physical use of it. Complaining doesn’t make anyone feel any better. Just appreciate what people are capable of giving you, especially the ones that love you most. It hurts being on the other end of the hook so give each other a break. Christmas isn’t purely about gift giving, it’s about appreciating the time you have spending with your family. It’s a common and forgiveable mistake for everyone (including myself). People subconcsiously forget what the holidays are really about, it just takes a little push and a just a little bit of reminding to snap them back. Merry Christmas everyone and don’t forget to let someone know that you appreciate having them in your life.

Christmas Eve December 24, 2008

Today I went to Goodyear to get my tires looked at because my pressure light has been on for a few weeks already. My front right tire was getting more deflated every day so I was getting a little worried. It turns out my two front tires are badly worn out and are in need of a replacement. The manager quoted me $330 for one set of two front tires, holy cow. I told them I’d be back Friday, of course if I end up finding a better deal somewhere else I’m headed there instead, shhh! After all that shenanigans, I took my mom to Target (in the horrible, unbearable traffic on Colima Road) and the local Chinese Market. Road rage was my biggest problem today. I can’t help it that I live in an area where people have an IQ of a monkey when it comes to driving. I’m not going to state specifically what race I’m talking about because some people are easily offended (and could also possibly agree), but I’m pretty sure the majority of you know which “people” I”m referring to. My mom had the urge to remind me to “calm down” every five minutes, which didn’t help.

I came home, looked at my closet, and sighed hopelessly to myself. Piles and piles of my dirty clothes mixed in with my clean ones filled what it should be: my walk-in closet. All I have to say is that my Christmas Eve consisted of me cleaning out and reorganizing my entire closet and actually having the ability to walk into my walk-in, amazing. After my accomplishment, I caught my sister in the act of attempting sit-ups in the hallway so I sneaked a shot on my phone (and giggled in the process). She seems to be taking this work-out routine pretty serious lately, it’s already been three whole days!

*Keep in mind that these pictures were taken from my G1. The quality isn’t great, but it’s much better than my shiteous old Sidekick LX.

Behold! My clean closet!

Abs of Steel.

Not too much this year.